Can Kurds confront PKK's Ergenekon? by Orhan Kemal Cengiz

o.cengiz@todayszaman.com
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Can Kurds confront PKK’s Ergenekon?
By Orhan Kemal Cengiz

Last year Neşe Düzel of the Taraf daily had interviewed Abdülkadir Aygan, a former Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant who also worked for the Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terrorism Organization (JİTEM).

JİTEM, an illegal formation within the gendarmerie, is known to use former PKK militants, now called “confessors,” in its operations. In this interview, Aygan explained in detail the nine years he worked for JİTEM. The ravenous ferocity and recklessness of JİTEM “operations,” as described by Aygan, would send chills down your spine.

However, in this article, I would like to focus on a very important detail from this interview --which remained as an accessory in the background, though it was frequently repeated throughout the interview -- and discuss its repercussions. As an explanation he offered for why he left the PKK, Aygan referred to extrajudicial killings within the organization. He shared how his friends had been killed while he witnessed these acts. He described how the militants who were considered “traitors” were put aside and how hysteria was created among the militants afterward. As I was reading the interview, I remembered how my hair stood up when I had read a PKK brochure in London years ago.

Punished ‘elements’

At first glance, I could not quite understand what the brochure meant due to its unique jargon. After perusing it several times, I finally understood what it said, and it made me sick. It said, with a rough translation: “X, who was suspected of being an element, was subjected to the practice and couldn’t withstand it and died. Later, it was understood that X was not an element, so his prestige was returned.” I decoded the message after reading it several times: X, who is suspected of being an “agent” (element), was “cross-examined under torture” (practice), and he died because he could not bear it. But they later found out that he did not work as an agent, and they decided to grant him a posthumous pardon.

At the time I read this statement, I was working as a lawyer for victims who had applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in connection with the JİTEM “operations,” as Aygan put it, i.e., burning villages, rape in custody, unresolved murders, etc. These cases provided good insight into how the Turkish deep state operated. Aygan’s words also gave us a misty impression of the PKK’s mentality. You could see how Kurdish villagers were trapped between the Turkish deep state and the PKK. For instance, in Akdıvar v. Turkey, we discussed what happened in a village that was burned down by both the PKK and JİTEM.

The conscientious Kurdish intellectuals whom I knew at that time would tell us that the PKK was itself involved in incredible killings within itself and that it was extremely cruel toward its own militants and people.

Being like the enemy

But I think the PKK resembles its enemy, JİTEM, and the Turkish deep state, not only in terms of this “execution” policy. We know that the PKK can easily divert from “guerrilla warfare” and easily conduct acts that would be categorized as “terrorism” under any benchmark, such as planting a bomb on a street. The Kurdish intellectuals who advocated a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue became targets and victims of bloody assassinations not only by the Turkish deep state but also by the PKK. It is true that enemies started to resemble each other after years of fighting. Perhaps another question should be asked at this point: Can it be that the similarities between the Turkish deep state and the PKK go beyond these “incidental” similarities? Can we even talk about the likelihood of a sort of cooperation or close contact between these two? Can it be that the symbiotic relationship between the Turkish deep state and the PKK goes beyond that famed political mutual dependence that needs constant crisis or enemy for survival?

Tuncay Güney’s statements

In his 2000 statement, Tuncay Güney, who had worked with Veli Küçük, once the most formidable figure of the Turkish deep state, explained with the utmost clarity how Ergenekon operated. It is unbelievable how those statements stayed on the dusty shelves of the police department for more than eight years and, perhaps, many more. Like the Ergenekon indictments, Güney’s statements also received their share of distortion and discrediting as well.
Putting aside the automatic denial reflexes in the face of Güney’s statements, we see that they contained three categories of information:
(1) those he witnessed, (2) those he heard about and (3) those he concluded.

We also observe that they are consistent to a certain extent and are supported by other testimony in the Ergenekon case file -- including the following story. Clearly, they alone cannot be considered substantial evidence. But I must confess that the pieces started to fall into place after reading them. Güney talked about a number of incidents including Susurluk, the Sabancı assassination, Ergenekon’s mafia connections and its ties with terrorist organizations. But a specific incident clearly reveals the cooperation between the Turkish and Kurdish Ergenekons.
Why were Uğur Mumcu and Eşref Bitlis killed?

The most popular theory offered as an explanation for why journalist and author Uğur Mumcu was killed in a car explosion in Ankara on Jan. 24, 1993, was that he was killed by Iran’s secret service. For many years, we listened to this nonsense. When there is a society ready to be duped, there are always some people seeking to fool it. Güney, on the other hand, gave us the most convincing explanation for the assassinations of Mumcu and Bitlis: Ergenekon received weapons that belonged to the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and were produced by the Kırıkkale gun factory and delivered them not only to Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani but also to the PKK (6,000 weapons).

Mumcu was killed because he wanted to write a news story about it, and Bitlis, who was the gendarmerie commander at that time, was murdered because he was against this bloody trade. Güney’s assessments about these murders are his own conclusion, but as far as we gather from his statements, he witnessed this weapon delivery business. Güney’s statements make frequent referrals to various aspects of Küçük’s relationship with a group inside the PKK.

Settling accounts with Ergenekon

Every time Turkey has taken a step toward democratization, a group inside the PKK has sabotaged it by conducting horrible killings or launching unreasonable “operations.” For some reason, this group inside the PKK had interests that overlapped with those of the Turkish deep state.

As Turkey introduces significant changes to its Constitution these days, the PKK is again conducting its “operations” in various parts of Turkey. For some reason, the Turkish soldiers cannot “prevent” these obvious attacks. You would not believe me, but some journalists, such as Şamil Tayyar of the Star daily, published a list of the provinces where these PKK attacks would be conducted. And, all of these attacks occurred as he predicted, and soldiers were killed in all of them. These intelligence reports are leaked to journalists by certain units of the state.

Apparently, these units first caution the military before leaking said information to journalists in an effort to make sure that these attacks are prevented. But they still cannot be prevented, and it is clear that the Turkish deep state and a certain wing of the PKK hope to derive the same benefit from these attacks.

The Ergenekon case gives us an important opportunity to settle accounts with the Turkish state. But are Kurds ready to do the same with the Ergenekon inside the PKK?

05 May 2010, Wednesday